‘There’s a big hole in the world’…film director David Lynch dies at 78

DIRECTOR David Lynch, known for TV's Twin Peaks and movies such as Eraserhead and Blue Velvet, has died just days before his 79th birthday.

- By Christopher Bucktin US Editor

His family announced the news yesterday on Facebook, expressing their grief and asking fans for privacy.

They wrote: "There's a big hole in the world now that he's no longer with us", adding in reference to one of Lynch's mantras: "Keep your eye on the doughnut and not on the hole."

Last year the Los Angeles-based filmmaker, musician and painter revealed he had been diagnosed with emphysema due to a lifetime of smoking and did not want to risk catching "even a cold" by leaving his house.

After his haunting breakout 1977 movie Eraserhead - which went on to inspire Stanley Kubrick's The Shining - the four-time Oscar nominee carved out a Hollywood career like no other.